Pages

Monday, May 25, 2015

Serbia to regulate charter flights

Serbia aims to resolve charter flight issues

The Serbian Parliament has adopted changes to the country’s Air Transport Law which specifies tighter regulation for charter operators. It comes after two Turkish (Freebird and Corendon Airlines) and one Egyptian charter carrier (Nesma Airlines) were blocked from operating leisure flights to Belgrade by the Serbian Ministry for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure. According to the modified Air Transport Law, the Ministry will no longer have a say in which carrier is issued a license to operate flights. That decision will now firmly rest with the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate (CAD). Previously, the CAD issued permits to charter airlines based on the advisory opinion of the Ministry. Tour operators have begun cancelling holiday packages with over 600 people already affected by the government’s decision to withhold permits from the abovementioned airlines. Operators have said the move is part of the government’ protectionist policy towards national carrier Air Serbia.

The Assistant Minister in charge of air transport, Zoran Ilić, says talks are underway with Turkish authorities to resolve the ongoing issue. However, Mr. Ilić also notes, “In previous years Serbian carriers expressed no interest to operate charter flights, which made it possible for anyone to fly to Serbia. Foreign carriers are well aware that there are certain procedures in place when it come to this market”. He adds, ”We have already started talks with the Turkish side and the results of those talks will lead to a solution”. The Minister for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlović, believes that tour operators are required to check whether airlines have been issued permits before selling travel packages. However, the law itself states that tour operators must first conclude agreements with charter airlines before they can apply for a permit.

The fallout from the government’s decision to block several charter carriers from operating services to the Serbian capital has not only put holiday plans at risk for thousands of travellers, but also threatened to impact passenger numbers at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. “In previous years there were no clear guidelines for charter flights. The new law deals with this area in greater detail so it can no longer be interpreted in different ways”, Ms. Mihajlović says. Meanwhile, the new Air Transport Law has been criticised by Serbian pilots, more on which you can read here.

So if I understood it well, the government will be going against the labour law it introduced a few months ago? How wonderful. I wonder if Air Serbia is behind this so that it can force pilots to operate two longer segments in stead of the current short+long.

Yeah! Serbia is a special place on the planet and our pilots cannot work like the rest of the EU/US pilots....we always seem to need special laws in the Balkans.....and somehow they are always against the rest of the world.

73-75h if we take 7 days (not 5 days) is in average approx 11h of flying per day... which then tells us that pilots can very well fit two longer flights i.e. CDG with easy every day... and if we count on 5 days working week calculation get even different ... so...

The other day two ladies were sending out a plan to the other departments and the mail came to Dane as well and he replied directly to them asking them why the mail was not in English. Btw the text was something like: please find attached the plan.

Seriously? Is this the best you can do? I've worked in a number of multinational companies and the company language is always english. If you want ASL to perform like any other pan-European company etc, you have to have international staff. There are just not enough people here in Serbia that talented/educated/experienced enough, so you need international employees.

Of course you should have english as the company language. Mails and plans etc might have to be forwarded to other people in other countries....or should the rest of the world have to learn Serbian and cyrillic?

Please give it a rest now and decide if you want to be part of an international world or if the sun is to move around Serbia.

Nice so basically Serbia doesn't have enough skilled people so let's bring more from abroad... The young can just keep on going abroad.

Mind you the rule is that wven during the innternal meetings when only Serbs are present they still havr to speak only English. It's an idiocy and it's being imposed by Dane because he doesn't speak his native language.

I had an experience in Sweden with large multinational corporation. During the meetings and in a casual conversations, local people would speak their native language. As soon as a foreigner showed up (and there was many of us from all over the world) they would immediately switch to English. Written communication (emails, memos) was almost entirely in English which kind of made sense.

I somehow have a tough time believing that ASL would force people to speak English in EVERY meeting. Is this applicable to quick business related conversation besides someone’s desk as well? If it’s truth than it’s plain stupid if you are asking me.

@SM ASL employees are now waking up... so Good morning ... this is how world functions for ages... So in meeting where there are only Serbs, of course that they will speak Serbian .. BUT minutes from that meeting have to be in English... Any problem with that?

"it's being imposed by Dane because he doesn't speak his native language"

I've heard him speak fluent Serbian. Not scripted and very interactive. His fluency has increased over the last two years. Makes me wonder if you even know the person?

Some people think Tito is still alive. Hate to break it to you, but English is the official language at many international companies even when they are based in non-English speaking countries. Learn and use English or let others take over your job. Consider it a priviledge to work in environment where you have to use English, put it on your CV as your advantage. There are more people learning English in China right now than the population of England!

@SM +1@Anon 6:35 PM It seems that you are not actually actively using English on daily basis ... I can tell you that after some time you actually start to thin in English ... so yes people in Serbia can turn English in business language. I.e. some people have problem to deliver business presentation in Serbian,they would always turn to English or they will be missing a lot of words... so yes, even meetings with Serbian majority could be in English "if they are better aligned in understanding like that" but that happens rarely.

Sure. The italian managers have all learned serbian and so has the Torino head quarters. In fact they learned the languages of all countries where they have factories. Of course not. The lingua franca, the pan-group language is for sure english. Then when you say internal it means, when no foreigner is present or is involved or might be involved in the future on the topic and smtg that would never need to be sent to hq or say another company e.g. fiat poland. In that case the locL language is used. This is the case in ALL multinational groups. Serbia is no exception. Its the globalised world, no point fighting against it. We need to fight to be winners in this world!! Ps. A co like ASL is the step in this direction.

Yes, ASL is Government owned. Give the Serb Government control of ASL and you can count the days before the company is back to bank ruptcy. Or even better, the Ministry of Stupidity.

Please bring in as many foreigners as possible so that at least some young people in Serbia has a chance to succeed without having relatives (nepotism) in higher places, but can succeed on their own merits.

The first ones to leave is the knowledgeable....and they started to leave 25 years ago.....

@AnonymousMay 25, 2015 at 2:46 PMIt is goverment "owned" it is not government run and it's not operating locally, it is operating globally ... Clear?

so as long as it is operated how it is operated, ownership makes no difference ... it can be owned by investment fund from Honolulu... Ownership is right to get "kajmak" and to put people in charge ... but focus is on "kajmak".

Dane learned this method of communication in Australia or EY where there is a wide range of nationalities with different languages so of course English will be the official language. If Arabic was EY would lose 70-80% of its work force. In Serbia situation is different since there is like 95% of work force Serbian speaking and only few heads who are foreign.

Example from Canada: I worked part time in a company where 70% of work force was from Pakistan and India, 20% Chinese and only 10% native English speaker or Europeans. Guess what was official language? Urdu and Punjabi, majority rules. Of course when they talk to me or in a meeting English will be used but otherwise you will hear only Indian subcontinent dialects. Even in Toronto English is technically not official language since on streets you will hear only Mandarin, Urdu, and so on. SHOULD CANADA NOW MAKE ALL FOREIGNER SPEAK ON ENGLISH? :D

yes I was not specific, but who are you to tell me that I am "nekulturan"? This is a anonymous blog where we write all type of stuff and please do not expect me to be formal and write Mr. Kondic! A few days ago you were the one who said " moje veze su najbolje" that is nekulturno cak i ako je to istina sto se pokazalo da nije.

How about for once that Serbia starts to love Serbia? I would say bring it on ... weapon doesn't kill people does...

...so if we can sell go for it ... I can have sympathies for Russia, and I really do have ... but at the end of the day it is our ass ... just look at Crimea, look at '99 when they allowed bombing and it was enough to send us S300 nothing more then that ... so bring it on ... let's have iron exported ...

I am not aware there was a bidding for Belgrade airport? Airport is getting more attractive as time goes by. After increasing by a million more passengers in 2014 and going through a slow growth this year, long haul flights are going to inject more boost into BEG. Depending on how many initial destinations and planes they get, long haul will directly add at least another 200-500k passengers a year. There is a lot more sustainable growth in sight, both for cargo and passengers, and then there is EU entry down the road. There's money to be made, what investor doesn't like that!

When it comes to BEG concession, "world has been standing still" for more than just last year. Air Serbia deal has been in the works over two years ago and it was clear from the start that massive airline expansion also required significant airport expansion. Back in 2013 plan called for Etihad to take over concession for 20 years, but that did not happen, most likely for reasons outside of EY/JU:

It has been more than a year and a half since then and no official sale/concession decision has been made. Yeah, I'd call that "standing still". Wake me up tomorrow if there is going to be a concession announcement. Surprise me!

People have plenty of other options in Serbia if they want to work for a company which exclusively uses the Serbian language. If they are not comfortable with English, then the only way to improve their competancy in English, is to use it in the workplace. Why do our schools make learning English mandatory ? People, Serbia is part of the world, not some backwater like North korea. Getting more people engaged in English is a good thing for everybody. For those that have a problem with this, they should look for employment elsewhere

You are talking garbage. Serbian "elite". In Netherland you have one year to learn Dutch. Serbians are going to live and work in Germany, Austria, Swiss and Russia. In Germany you can comunicate basic things with English but not much sophisticated. They have dubbed TV and Cinema. You need to have someon from commerce or enginering with proper knowladge of English.

EX-YU Aviation News does not tolerate insults, excessive swearing, racist, homophobic or any other chauvinist remarks or provocative posts with the intention of creating further arguments. A full list of comment guidelines can be found here. Thank you for your cooperation.

LIVERY OF THE WEEK

Jetstar special

CLICK FOR MORE DETAILS

Australian low cost carrier Jetstar has unveiled a special livery on one of its Airbus A320s to promote the first country-specific version of the board game Scrabble. Manufacturer Mattel has included a list of local slang in its official glossary that are also featured on the jet, including words such as "Bonza", "Mollydooker" and "Devo". The A320 also includes the airline's name spelled out with Scrabble tiles. The jet is being used on both domestic and international routes and features Scrabble branding inside the cabin as well

GLOBAL AVIATION NEWS

Lufthansa, easyJet favourites for Air Berlin

Lufthansa Group and UK-based easyJet have been selected as preferred bidders for the main assets of the insolvent Air Berlin, the German carrier has confirmed. Lufthansa also submitted a bid for Air Berlin's Austria-based subsidiary Niki, which could be integrated into its LCC arm Eurowings. Air Berlin administrator Lucas Flother had planned to keep these decisions confidential until September 25, after Germany’s general elections. Air Berlin said in a statement that the creditors’ committee will continue talks with the two carriers until October 12 with the aim of selling Air Berlin's air transport assets. Talks with bidders interested in other assets will continue in parallel. Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr said at a media event in Frankfurt that Lufthansa’s bid for Air Berlin's assets is focused on securing the 38 Airbus A319/320s it wet leases from Air Berlin. The Star Alliance member is also interested in a further 20 to 40 aircraft, without creating antitrust concerns. Those 38 wet-leased aircraft carry about 1.000 passengers a day, mainly for LCC Eurowings, and Lufthansa’s priority is to keep that operation stable. Lufthansa would need around 3.000 new employees as it seeks to build market share following the exit of Air Berlin, which has 8.000 employees. However, Lufthansa is not interested in Air Berlin's long-haul routes because it said Eurowings can grow this segment on its own. Air Berlin will end long-haul operations September 25.
Source: ATW